


Cut the Dead Wood Out

by KillerSnotMonster



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 18:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19067845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillerSnotMonster/pseuds/KillerSnotMonster
Summary: Buffy walks in on Riley staking Spike.





	Cut the Dead Wood Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustWriterBritt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustWriterBritt/gifts).



> Some lines and situations lifted from s5e10, of course!
> 
> Written for a [challenge posted on EF](https://dark-solace.org/elysian/modules/challenges/challenges.php?chalid=2869) by [JustWriter](https://dark-solace.org/elysian/viewuser.php?uid=20303)/[JustWriterBritt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustWriterBritt). Beta work by [Twinkles](https://dark-solace.org/elysian/viewuser.php?uid=18276)/[wolf_shadoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolf_shadoe) and [stalwartsandall](https://dark-solace.org/elysian/viewuser.php?uid=21885). Gorgeous banner by [OffYour](https://dark-solace.org/elysian/viewuser.php?uid=18379)[Bird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OffYourBird/pseuds/OffYourBird). Big thanks all around!
> 
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

Buffy left the gang at the Magic Box, powered by fury as she marched toward Restfield in the afternoon sun. Her friends didn’t get it. How could they? They weren’t the ones face-to-face with a partner's betrayal. None of them had ever caught their boyfriend in a suck-house.

God, who knew how many times this had happened? And not just to her, but to other girls. How many people were willingly offering their blood to monsters...for the thrill of it. And how many had died in pursuit of that thrill? And how many more of the places existed?

She didn’t know why Spike had decided to tell her, but she was going to find out. She was going to learn everything he knew about this. Then make him come with her to destroy the revolting places...since no one else seemed to be taking it very seriously.

She threw open his crypt door and froze, her fury dissipating as she stared at the scene before her.

Riley was plunging a wooden stake into Spike’s chest. She watched it hit its target, stabbing directly into his heart.

Buffy couldn’t help herself; she gasped.

***

Spike registered a flicker of blonde curls beyond Finn’s shoulder. It was fitting, really, that the last thing he’d see was a glimpse of that glossy, shampoo commercial hair. He even fancied he heard her gasp as the blow struck. Christ, was he a sorry bloke or what? Calling forth visions of the Slayer at the moment of his death.

The stake pierced his heart, and—expecting the end of all consciousness, followed by instant transport to eternal hellfire—he was somewhat surprised to be met instead with unbelievable, unrelenting pain. He heard himself yell, twisting away from it, but the stake had him pinned in place. What the hell was going on? And then suddenly the heft of the stake was gone, and the pain flared before fading slightly as his body immediately tried to mend itself. He slumped against the pillar, eyes streaming as he stared at the sharpened wood in Finn’s hand. How…?

“Plastic wood-grain,” Finn informed him scathingly. “Looks real, doesn’t it?” He grabbed Spike’s shirt in his fist. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on with you, Spike,” he growled. “Stay away from her. Or we’ll do this for real next time.”

“What’s going on?” It was the Slayer’s voice. She was here after all.

He chuckled, the entire scene utterly surreal, and slid a few more inches down the pillar.

“Buffy!” Finn spun around, dropping the stake and releasing Spike’s shirt to face the golden goddess he didn’t deserve.

***

When answers weren’t forthcoming, she repeated, “What’s going on?”

“Buffy, I...” Riley was staring at her, completely stupefied. “Buffy,” he started again, clearly scrambling for words.

“What’s going on?” she demanded a third time. “Do not make me ask again,” she added, aiming for menace but feeling her body shake as she took a step forward. Why exactly she was shaking, she wasn’t sure. Shock? Anger? Fear? She looked down at the bloody stake on the floor and then up at Spike.  _Plastic wood-grain._

Plastic wood-grain. A weapon made to cause suffering, not death. Spike had shown Buffy the truth about what Riley had been doing, and Riley wanted to make him suffer in retaliation. Not even kill the messenger. Torture the messenger.

Riley followed her gaze to the stake. “Uh, plastic wood-grain,” he said gruffly. “Non-lethal.”

“I got that part,” she replied slowly. She felt like she was moving through molasses. The righteous fury that had brought her here had dulled, muddied by the unfathomable scene she’d walked in on. God, if only her arms weren’t hanging leaden and useless at her sides, she’d slap him.

Instead she settled for asking, “Riley, why are you torturing Spike?”

“What?” Riley’s voice turned disbelieving and defensive. “You got something against what I’m doing here? Buffy, you’re the  _Slayer_.”

“I am. And I do what I do so there’s less suffering in the world. What do you do it for?”

Without giving him a chance to answer, she went on, “Actually, I don’t have to ask, do I? You do it for the thrill, for the rush of macho power. Well guess what, Riley?” Her righteous anger was coming back, and she flexed her fingers. “What you’re doing—staking defenseless demons with novelty weapons, turning yourself into a vamp chewtoy—you might get a thrill from it, but you’ll never get power.” She stepped closer, though not so close that she had to look up to stare him in the eyes. “I’m glad Spike told me,” she said. “He made the right call.”

“Right,” Riley shot back sarcastically. “He’s the good guy in this scenario.”

“Get out.”

“What?”

“I said get out. I came here to talk to Spike, not to you.”

“Buffy—”

She cut him off with a glare.

Face taut, he stepped around her and left.

***

Spike sat slouched on the floor, clutching his chest and watching the Slayer as her boy headed out the door. Her eyes went wide, shining with despair. And he realized that maybe this was it. This was his in.

He reached out a hand to her, thinking to comfort as he had done on her back stoop a few weeks earlier. Glancing down, he realized the palm was smeared with his own blood and let it fall.

“Slayer?” he said hoarsely, tentatively.

“Why would he do that?” she asked, her voice small and tremulous.

“Well,” he scoffed, “he’s never taken much of a liking to me, has he?” He inspected the wound over his heart. “Still,” he allowed, “cruel and unusual, one might say.”

“Not that,” she said. “That place…”

Spike paused in poking the gaping hole in his chest, looking up slowly from his own bleeding flesh to Buffy’s face. She was staring slightly downward, at nothing.

“Oh,” he caught on. “That.” He stood carefully, without breathing so his chest moved as little as possible. “I’ve got theories. Including one that he’s sick in the head.”

Buffy turned and snatched up the plastic stake.

“Hey now,” he said defensively. “None of that.” He didn’t want to fight. Any other day, any other moment. But Christ did his chest hurt just now.

But Buffy just held the stake loosely in her hand, looking down at it despondently.

“He’s mad at you for telling me,” she said.

He nodded in agreement. “Looks that way.”

“I burned the place to the ground,” she added distantly.

“You did, did you?” He wanted to laugh at that, and started to, but stopped when the reverberations made his chest sting.

Her eyes snapped to him as he tried to stifle a groan of pain and she commented, “The vamps were all gone though.”

“They’re not your problem, pet,” he said. “Right now, boy’s your problem, isn’t he?”

She looked puzzled by that.

“He thinks he doesn’t have you,” he elaborated.

“Why the hell would he think that?” she questioned. “Wait. Why do  _you_  think he thinks that?”

“Obvious, innit? Why else would he be looking for attention from two-bit vampire trulls?”

“So you’re saying this is my fault?”

“No, I’m saying it’s his fault.”

A silence stretched after that, punctuated only by late afternoon birdsong. Spike stepped away from her and leaned against the sarcophagus, anxious for her to speak again. Would she blame him after all?

She wasn’t looking at him, her gaze focused on the dusty floor, but finally, she spoke. “What do I do?” Her voice sounded desperate. Lost. Seeking guidance from anyone at all who might have an answer, even him.

He considered the question; he hadn’t been prepared for this. The stupider parts of him had certainly hoped she would run to him for comfort and support, but in his half-formed fantasies, that comfort and support had involved more snogging and groping than dispensing wisdom. And, as much as he’d like to suggest she ditch the oaf, he needed to tread carefully.

“You gotta cut the dead wood out, Slayer.”

“What?”

He grimaced. The part of him that tended toward poetic imagery was certainly one of his stupider ones, especially now. Buffy Summers didn’t want poetry; she wanted plain words—undecorated and straight to the point. But he’d already let the analogy escape his mouth.

“If part of the tree is dead, you get rid of it,” he explained. “Or it kills the whole tree.”

“What are you, a tree expert?”

“Uh, no, I wouldn’t say that I am.” Why was he so bloody  _nervous_? He was half expecting her to punch him in the nose and flounce off. But instead, here she was, listening to his inane words.

“Am I supposed to be the tree in this metaphor?” She was frowning, but she was looking at him now.

“If you like,” he hedged.

***

She was standing about ten feet away from him,  _actually_  listening to his  _actual_  answer to her  _actual_ question. No crass verbal barbs, no one-sided physical altercations.

It was too bizarre.

“You’re telling me that I have to cut away the dead part of me?” The metaphor...kinda made sense. But also not.

His eyes darted away from her.

She turned away from him. “Is Riley the dead part in this metaphor?” she asked wearily. In front of her was an armchair and a little table with a couple of books. Spike still didn’t answer, so she sighed and sank into the chair. She spun the plastic stake in her hand, buying time, and then tossed it across the floor. As it rolled to a stop, she looked up and noted that the sky outside the grimy windows was edging toward sunset.

“It was just...so nice for a while, y’know?” she said, staring at her knees. “And then it turns out he’s been...doing what he’s been doing. And then he comes here and attacks you.” She pushed up off the chair, too aggravated to stay seated. But after pacing a few steps, she came to a stop, too miserable to stay in motion. “I thought he was a normal, nice guy,” she muttered.

She heard Spike shift and turned her head towards him, waiting for his response with eyes narrowed. Usually he wouldn’t shut up. But he was merely moving away from the streak of fading sunlight filtering through the glass.

“You gonna say anything else, or did you go mute after the tree thing?”

He sighed, then winced as the movement heaved his injured chest. “You’re the one who asked what to do,” he grumbled, straightening and stepping away from the sarcophagus.

He passed her, leaving a wide gap between them, and sat down in the armchair. With a transparent attempt at subtlety, he pressed his palm over his wound, then grabbed a bottle of liquor that was stashed by the chair. He didn’t drink, just gazed at the bottle’s contents morosely.

“Are you okay?” she asked begrudgingly, in her best pretend-I-care voice. She really didn’t care though. Didn’t care that he was suffering for his honesty. Didn’t care that his weird answer about trees essentially boiled down to the same ‘you should probably dump him’ advice any reliable friend could give.

Nope, she definitely didn’t care one bit.

He tilted his head and looked at her curiously. Afraid that her sympathy—Nope! Definitely not that!—had shown on her face, she hardened her jaw and tried to make her expression impassive.

“Will be in time,” Spike finally answered, smiling softly.


End file.
